


Our Spring

by yehetmeup



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:40:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16924986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yehetmeup/pseuds/yehetmeup
Summary: You both work at the new Moulin Violet in Paris’ lively Monmarte neighborhood. Baekhyun spends his days loving others, and he never expects to lose his heart to the woman who tidies his sheets and sweeps the floors.





	Our Spring

I fell for you on the first day of spring. I made the walk from my small apartment, that horrible cramped studio, only saved by its prized view of the Sacré-Cœur, with surprising lightness that day; my hand in my pocket, my steps unhurried. 

It was as if I had a premonition that something was about to change, even though there was no way I could have predicted you. Cherry blossoms lined the sidewalks that morning, lovers young and old stopped to swoon over the sight.

The lights of the stately building were dark when I arrived, but I would have sworn I could still hear the echoes of last night’s revelry bouncing around the alleys. 

Despite the early hour Madame Le Champs was up and about, going over the books as always. I snuck up behind her and tickled her waist, grinning as she scolded me with a laugh, swatting away my hands. She always had such a heavy heart in those early days of the Moulin Violet and I did my best to cheer her up whenever I could.

She had poured her heart, soul, and savings into buying the old Moulin Rouge and remodeling it as a haven of pleasure and entertainment for both men and women. Why she took a chance on a down and out street artist like me, I’ll never know - I am only grateful that she did. It gave me a stable income; the ability to matter to people, to help dozens of lonely, shy women come out of their shells. But most of all, it gave me you.

That day I had gone up to my room, twirling my fingers in the air as if playing with my old paintbrush. I laughed to myself as I climbed the flights of stairs, bemused that my grasp was becoming far more attuned to sliding down the skin of a thigh than a fresh sheet of parchment by that point. 

I had opened the wide window and looked out, feeling a breeze sing by me, bringing the scent of early morning baguettes and croissants from the bakery across the street with it.

The other performers at the Moulin Violet didn’t wake until the sun was high in the sky, but I always savored those quiet hours while most of the city slept. I painted dozens of canvases in solitude. Portraits of my favorite repeat clients. Countless hours were spent trying to capture the way the city looks from the river on New Year’s Day. Fanciful attempts at conveying the majesty of the Jardin des Tuileries in full bloom. 

I was so diverse in those days - before you came to dominate my focus. Before every stroke of my brush was for you and you alone.

After a long day of painting I had gone to the washroom to clean up, to scrub the flecks of color from my skin before assembling myself into the charming façade the customers had come to expect. My shirt, carelessly thrown on the floor so I could work on a large splatter of green near my collarbone. My hand, on the sink, the other attacking the stubborn dried blob.

I was humming something, but by this point I’ve forgotten what it was. Surely it was a love song that brought you to me, I want to believe; though you’d call me a romantic fool if I ever admitted it to you.

You’d barged in the door without bothering to knock, a blush coming to your cheeks as your shocked face took in my bare torso. Stammering apologies for intruding, a mop and bucket clutched in your hands like a shield against me.

What did I say to you then, love? ‘The first look is free, but after that I’m going to charge you.’ And then my mouse became a lioness. Your arms dropped along with your jaw, before you’d solidified into steel and outrage.

I had to bite my lip to contain my joy as you cursed me out with enough creative language to make a sailor proud. Something about how dare I not lock the door – demanding to know what was I even doing there at such an hour. Didn’t I know that you only had three more hours to make this place ready for the day’s guests?

To be honest I’ve forgotten your words, these many months later, but can you blame me? I was too lost in the color of your cheeks, still red, but in anger at this point, rather than embarrassment. Lost in the shine of your hair as it caught the light spilling from the narrow window in the hallway.

Your high cheekbones and lush lips were better suited to that of a princess, not a maid, I’d thought, holding the rag loosely in my hand as I felt myself fall into your wide eyes. 

I do remember the last thing you said to me that day, for it was what sealed my heart away as yours forever. ‘What are you waiting for, pretty boy? Get a move on,’ you’d instructed in a haughty tone usually reserved for royalty.

I’d gathered my shirt with a grin, hovering over you for a beat before moving on. Just enough time to see your eyes widen with awareness. I winked at you, delighting in your frustrated groan as I stepped around you, secure in the knowledge that you were just as attracted to me as I was to you – even if you’d loathe to admit it.

It took me a week to learn your name. A week of lingering in the main performance space, near the kitchen, in every nook and cranny of the place, waiting for you.

Finally one afternoon I saw you again, carrying armloads of laundry, your arms struggling under the weight of satin sheets. With a sigh you’d eyed the deep wood stairs as though they were your personal mountain to tame. You regarded my offer to help with suspicion, your keen eyes sizing me up and finding me barely acceptable.

Even if you did believe me to be ‘a most disreputable flirt’ as I heard you say under your breath, you still accepted my assistance. You twitched every time I moved behind you in our dance of making beds, your body aware of my presence even if your mind was a beat behind.

I fell in love with your hands, the precise way you tucked in the corners, your sharp gaze scanning for any flaw to fix. I took in your clean work boots, the smooth press of your shirt, standing out against such wanton disorder. Your delicate braid trailed down your back and my fingers were desperate to wrap around it; to tug back your head gently, opening your sweet mouth to claim you.

I finally pried the single word I had been longing for from your lips just as the sun was setting. After hours of washing windows alongside you, you let it slip. As though you couldn’t hold it in any longer. The letters arranged themselves to form your identity, but how could a name contain the wild majesty of you?

Over the ensuing months I tried on many others – darling, sweetness, amour – ma petite was a particular favorite. When I called you that one, the raise of your delicate brow and twist of your lips had made my heart stop as you eyed me, amusement warring with heat in your depths. 

But after those long months I came to the inevitable conclusion that the only endearment I ever wanted to call you was ‘mine.’ The words tumbled from my lips the night you finally gave in, surrendered to the passion between us. Soft and full of need, your tongue loosened from the bottle of champagne we split to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Moulin Violet.

That night, you told me you wanted me, and my answering reply had barely left my giddy mouth before you launched yourself at me. Ma lionne – my lioness – I called you in between breaths as your hands tugged at my shirt, your fingers greedily digging into the skin of my back. The fire in your eyes had reduced me to cinders; cinders and ash of the man I had been before I met you.

Ma reine – my queen – I called you in the early hours of the following morning, the decadent sheets tangled around our limbs felt too heavy for a love as pure and light as ours. I trailed my fingers down the skin of your back, grinning as you stirred in the gentle sunlight, wondering what it would take to make you mine and only mine.

To have my lips be the only ones yours touched until the day we died. To have my hands be the only given permission to play with the delicate flesh of your hips. To have my name be the only one you sighed in reverence when we both found our completion.

Mon couer – my heart – you came to be in the weeks and months that followed.

You let me into your bed, into your life, but not your heart. That I had to pry open with my bare hands, slowly revealing it – argument by argument, forgiveness and reunion, over long mornings, evenings, and everything in between. It was only on Christmas that you finally told me that you were mine as much as I’ve always been yours.

Is there a happier moment that I can recall, than the way you looked in the cool Decmber air that leaked beneath the floorboards of my aparment, clutching my face in your hands as the confession tumbled out of you? 

Your eyes were wide, as if you were terrified by the force of the love that spilled from your lips; as you let me into your heart, your very soul. I tried to be gentle with you then, to reassure you that my feelings for you were as strong as the iron of the Eiffel Tower.

I couldn’t be gentle, not when you looked as if you were finally finding your home in the world, as if you finally had recognized me as your last, and greatest, love. My hands, my tongue, my body were not gentle that morning, even if the praise and ecstatic joy that fell out of me was composed of soft words.

I am very lucky, mon couer, that you like me when I am rough, when my need is as great as all of Paris, just as much as you like me when I am sweeter than the strawberry scones you bake just for me on special occasions. I am very lucky, my heart, that your hunger rises to meet mine in equal measure.

But there is one term of endearment that might become my favorite; Ma femme – my wife. 

The ring is in my pocket now, my hands shook as they had placed it there this morning. Desire vibrates in my very bones now, as I walk to meet you at our favorite place. The same cherry blossoms are out in their finery this evening. Their deep blush pink lines the streets, radiating the color of love, the color of your lips.

But this night, unlike that fateful morning a year ago, my steps are hurried rather than languid. My destination is not an airy room where I will paint, but your arms. 

I can’t wait to hold you, my love, my lionness, my queen. I can’t wait to hold you and tell you that I’ve found us a new home in the countryside. A place where I can paint and you can read, tucked away beneath olive groves without a care in the world.

The Moulin Violet has been our lighthouse in this bustling city of lights, but now it is time for us to move on. You will never have to mop another floor, make another bed. I will never again use my body to bring anyone else pleasure, all the days of my life. 

The little house cost but a fraction of the money I’ve earned these past months. It will see us through many years, and after that – who knows? As long as I have enough paint, and you in my arms as I fall asleep, what else do I need on this earth.

I can see you now, up ahead. Your arms thrown behind you in wild joy as the cherry blossoms sail around you in the wind. Your eyes closed in joy, in reverence. 

Mine, I think with a thundering in my chest as I approach, savoring the way your form contains what is most precious in the world to me. The word spins around in my chest, beats in time with my heartbeat. I let out a laugh, simply too full of feeling to hold it in any longer, the sound drawing your attention to me across the paved sidewalk.

Your hand moves to hold your hat, securing it to your head against the breeze. But you stay still, steadfast in your position, as you watch me approach. Normally you would run to me, your hands and body seeking mine as if being apart from me for a second longer was an exquisite torture you don’t have the heart to bear. But today, you stay still.

Your warm eyes meet mine, widening slightly, as though your spirit knows that something about this day is different. As if it knows that something between us will irrevocably change after the question I am coming to ask you.

I walk toward you, my hand firm and steady on the ring in my pocket, my eyes unable to leave yours. Whatever else I have called you in the days before this one, today I am composed only of the fierce need to call you mine, forever.


End file.
